


The God's Honest Truth

by kaasknot



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky sees right through him, Cuddling, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Steve is a dirty liar, That's it, lying, that's the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 22:15:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3545687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaasknot/pseuds/kaasknot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing about Steve Rogers: he doesn't talk much, but when he does, he can spin solid gold out of thin air. Bucky knows. He's seen it.</p><p>A 5 +1 story: five times Steve told a story, and one time Bucky told one back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The God's Honest Truth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dira Sudis (dsudis)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/gifts).



> Officially the first 5 +1 I've written. I find myself vaguely proud.

"Five of 'em?" Bucky asks wonderingly.

"Yeah," Steve answers, blood dripping down his chin. "Five." He grins, and the gap in his smile looks like a knocked-out post in a fence line. "I told 'em they could stick it."

"But--what would they want with your baby teeth?"

Steve leans in close. "You know about the tooth fairy, right?"

"Yeah, everyone knows about that."

"Well, they're running a racket. Try'na collect as many teeth as possible and sell 'em to the fairy."

Bucky narrows his eyes. "Why didn't they take more of yours, then?"

"I fought 'em off, of course!"

"You fought off five fifth-graders. By yourself."

Steve looks affronted, though it's somewhat spoiled by the way he can't open his right eye all the way. The shiner's pretty darn impressive. "You sayin' I'm a liar?"

"I'm sayin' you fell an' hit a rock or somethin' and don't wanna admit it."

Steve blushes. He's got the palest skin Bucky's ever seen, and it won't take a lie without the truth showing through.

"That's what I thought."

***

Bucky stares at Steve from across Mrs. Rogers's kitchen table, wiped clean and smelling of lemon polish. "You went on a date."

"S'what I said." Steve's lying. Bucky can see it plain as the sunshine coming through the curtains.

"Where'd you go?"

"Loew's. They were showing _The Mummy_."

"A brave customer, then. What'd she look like?"

Steve freezes. "Well--"

Bucky crosses his arms. "I wasn't born yesterday, Steve. Was there a girl?"

Steve looks away. His ears look awfully big, from this angle. All of a sudden Bucky feels no better than the bullies that harassed Steve every day from first grade to sixth. He lets out a sigh and uncrosses his arms.

"Why'd you say there was, then?"

Steve's looking at his lap. His sleeves are getting a little too short in the cuff, Bucky notices. Not much of a growth spurt, but not nothing. Steve picks at a loose thread. "Figured if you thought I was going steady you'd stop trying to set me up all the time."

Bucky feels the starch go out of him. "I--I thought--"

"Not that I don't appreciate you trying!" Steve says at whatever he sees on Bucky's face, his eyes wide and blue. "I just--it's not gonna happen. So you may as well stop."

"Just 'cause they can't see--"

"It's not that," Steve says, cutting him off. " _I_ don't--I mean." His ears turn red. "I never know what to say, and most of 'em don't even want to see the movie, they just wanna neck. And. I don't know." He scratches his forehead, then waves his hand. "Kissing doesn't seem like all it's cracked up to be."

Bucky blinks. "You've been kissing?"

Steve blinks back. "Well, yes. Haven't you?"

"I--I mean, well." Bucky can feel his cheeks heating up, because while he doesn't blush as easily as Steve, when he does he goes for broke. "Not. Not really."

Steve stares at him, dumbstruck. "But you--"

"I know! Okay? I know." Bucky hunches in his chair. "It's just. It looks really wet. And I think about smearing their lipstick, and." He runs a hand over his mouth. "I usually duck out before it gets that far." The silence settles between them. Bucky stares at his knees.

Steve shifts in his chair. "It is," he finally says , and Bucky looks up at him. "Wet, I mean. And lipstick ain't much to write home about." He smiles tentatively.

Bucky feels something unclench in his chest.

***

"You're gonna do all that, huh," Bucky says. Frost is creeping over the windowpanes, but the kitchen is warm and muggy, and the bathwater hot. Steve is a sleepy weight against his chest.

"Yep," Steve answers. There's a firm pride in his voice, and Bucky gives into the urge to comb his fingers back through Steve's hair.

"So lemme get this straight. You're gonna enlist."

"First thing tomorrow."

"You're gonna show everyone at boot camp that you're just as strong as they are."

"Maybe not _as_ strong--"

Bucky snorts. "You bet your skinny ass. Dishes for a week says I can kick your ass at push ups." He nuzzles at the curve of Steve's ear. "Twice as stubborn, though."

"I'll show 'em," Steve murmurs, burrowing deeper in the vee of Bucky's legs. "Just as good as they are."

"Maybe you'll get a position as a scout," Bucky says, ducking his arms back in the water to warm them up. "That's a good position for small guys. You'd have to run fast, though."

"Wanna be on the front lines. With the rest of them."

Bucky sighs. "Steve..."

"Bucky."

"No, I'm not shutting up about it. If the Army won't take you, then it won't take you. But you gotta know that you won't be useless if you stay stateside, okay?"

He can feel the tension spring up in Steve's spare body. He sits forward, turns around to look at Bucky. "You gonna say I can't take it, too?"

"I swear to God," Bucky mutters. "Did I fucking say that, Rogers?"

Steve glares at him a little longer.

Bucky reaches for him, drags him back in place. He wraps his arms around that pigeon chest and says in his ear, as calm and reasonable as he can manage: "If you can survive a whole winter of pneumonia you're plenty strong. And not even Ida Gorman can say you don't have determination."

He feels the stiffness ease out of Steve's body. He lays a kiss against Steve's neck. "Gotta keep your options open, is all I'm saying. I'm going to the Army, but that doesn't mean you have to."

Steve stays silent. The selective service letter tacked on the wall by the door flutters in a draft. "Don't want you going alone."

Bucky bites his lip and tightens his hold around Steve's skinny body. "I'd rather be alone with you safe at home than have you next to me when the bullets are flying."

Steve hooks his ankle over Bucky's. "Don't want to be safe."

"I know." He savors the warmth while he can.

***

"That's not how it went, and you know it," Bucky cuts in. Steve hesitates for a moment.

"You saying my ma isn't a woman of her word?"

Bucky swallows. "I'm saying your ma never said it in the first place," he says quietly. "And you damn well know it."

Steve's fingers brush against the back of his neck. "I do, huh."

"You dropped the plate, and you tried to convince her it was the wind, but she never took you at your word, Steven Grant. She washed your mouth out for lying." He sighs into Steve's chest.

"Couldn't ever fool you," Steve says good-humoredly. It rings false in the still air. "You or her. Never could."

"Then why'd you try."

Steve gave a one-armed shrug. "Makin' sure you were awake."

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut. Squeezes them against this strange, poky room in a strange city, with his best friend wrapped around him, but with strange, muscled arms and strangely clear lungs. His gray apathy vaporizes in a cloud of fury.

"Goddamn it, Steve!" Bucky tears himself out of his arms, rolling across the bed to end up on his knees on the floor. "What the hell were you thinking?"

Steve blinks after him in surprise. "Bucky?"

"This!" Bucky waves his hands, taking in Steve's--everything. He's stripped out of his shoes, coat and shirt; all that's left is his undershirt and his trousers, gradually losing their creases the longer he lays flopped across the bed. He's beautiful. "This body! Getting in the fucking war!"

Steve's eyes go flinty. "I was thinking I could help my country," he says.

"Pull the other one," Bucky hisses. "You gonna tell me you were that desperate to get shot?"

Steve reaches across the bed, but Bucky scrambles away from his grasp. "Were you so desperate to prove Jake O'Reilly and Duncan Richards wrong that you signed up for--for whatever the hell this was? You could have _died_ \--" his voice shakes so badly he cuts himself off. It feels like a stone has settled in his throat, and words won't come out.

Steve's face softens into something uncertain. "Buck?"

"God, I almost lost you," Bucky chokes out. It swallows him whole: the image of himself dead on Zola's table, and Steve left at home, his brow crinkled just the way it is now as he reads the papers for any hint of what may have happened to him. A knock from the MPs, a letter--" _I very much regret to inform you_..."

"Bucky," Steve says, and he's there, strong and warm and twice the man he was before ( _twice as stubborn, too_ , the nasty part of Bucky's mind whispers), and he pulls Bucky back into the bed with him. Bucky buries his face beneath Steve's chin. His breath scratches in his throat. "Bucky, I've got you."

In the distance, the all-clear sirens sound. Steve winds their bodies together as close as he can. "Hey," he murmurs into Bucky's hair. "You remember the time Danny Allbright bought that decoder ring from Becca?"

Bucky swallows. "He joked about buying her favors for a dime."

"I'll never forget the way he squealed when you shoved that dog turd down the back of his shirt."

"Little fucker deserved it."

He feels the soft press of Steve's lips against his hairline. "And then your ma found out."

"Couldn't sit for a week." He burrows in against Steve's collarbones. "You're horrible at cheering people up, Rogers. Absolute worst."

"Eh, you don't count."

It's the easiest Bucky sleeps since he left New York.

***

The operative known as Rogers, Steven, codename: Captain America, holds out a hand. "You're gonna be fine, Buck. We'll, we'll take care of you, I promise."

The Winter Soldier stares at the hand. Captain Rogers's knuckles are bloody, his cuffs stained with GSR. The Winter Soldier backs away. "You are lying."

"Bucky, wait!"

The Winter Soldier vanishes into the night.

***

Steve looks up from his book. "Where'd you go?"

Bucky toes off his shoes and hangs up his coat. The needle was easy enough to dispose of, but planting the gun will take a little more effort. It's worth it for three less HYDRA scumbags in the world. "Around. Cleaning up some loose ends, figuring things out. You know."

"Everything okay?" Steve sets the book aside, his gaze razor-keen. He knows Bucky's not on the level, but he's ready to take it at face value if Bucky convinces him. Bucky feels the corner of his lips ghost up in a smile.

"It's getting there."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [tumblr](http://kaasknot.tumblr.com/post/114131595219/the-gods-honest-truth-kaasknot-captain). Enter at your own risk.


End file.
